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The Mawer New Canada Fund (Trades, Portfolio) is a five-star rated fund by Morningstar that invests primarily in smaller Canadian companies. Its investment strategy is a research-driven, bottom-up approach aimed at long-term holding.

Martin Ferguson serves as the fund’s portfolio manager, and in 2011, was awarded the Morningstar Domestic Equity Fund Manager of the Year award at the Canadian Investment Awards.

Leith Wheeler Investment Counsel is a $16 billion value investing fund based in Canada, where investment firms are required to disclose holdings every six months. Managers at Leith Wheeler invest in companies that have a good business model and management team, looking for a margin of safety and holding for the long term.

Leith Wheeler Canadian Equity Fund’s portfolio contained 44 stocks, valued at $2.2 billion in total and the end of the fourth quarter. The top sector represented in the portfolio was Financial Services 38.4%, Industrials at 14.7% and Energy at 14.2%.

Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio)'s latest purchase of a family built business was a large automobile dealership business. With it comes 78 auto dealerships and an operation built by an owner manager.

Buffett expects that business to grow, and he also expects his partnership with 3G to expand.

With the health care industry in all sorts of turmoil, we might well ask why any sane investor would buy in. After all, it’s filled with legislative uncertainties, regulatory and litigation certainties, not to mention technological change and more.

Yet, investors looking for capital appreciation should give some attention to Aetna Inc. (AET), the long-lived health insurance company. It has delivered strong, consistent earnings in the past and appears capable of continuing along that path for at the least the next few years. It carries with it a storied history and enough mass to survive in a turbulent environment.

Investors could be forgiven if they looked back on 2014 as a year of mixed signals. Concerns about slowing growth in China, a possible recession across Europe and increasing tensions with Russia over their aggressive moves against Ukraine all contributed to market uncertainty. On the other hand, earnings continued to exceed expectations and the rapid decline in energy prices put a tailwind behind the U.S. economy, rewarding investors with the sixth year in a row of positive returns and the longest run since the bull market of the 1990s.

With crude oil down more than 40 percent for 2014 (and continuing to fall in the first weeks of the New Year), we believe this will be the biggest driver of the U.S. markets and economy over the next several quarters. GDP growth in Q3 was revised upward to a healthy five percent annual rate, even before the stimulus of lower gas prices had fully kicked in, revealing continued momentum to the domestic economy as we enter 2015.

Mobileye (MBLY), a technology company that is based in the Netherlands with a research and development center in Jerusalem, is something of an enigma for investors.

Mobileye specializes in cutting-edge automotive technology. Its products are designed to help prevent auto collisions or lessen their severity when they can’t be avoided. The nature of the business means the products it chooses to promote tend to be big hits or big misses. Sometimes they pay off. Sometimes they don’t. The stock price fluctuates – it is up one quarter, down the next.

McDonald’s (MCD) will begin providing an all-day breakfast menu. Presently the Big Mac maker serves breakfast until 10:30 a.m. According to Business Insider, the company will first start offering consumers all-day breakfast menu at various locations in San Diego in April. If the test receives a positive response and turns out to be successful, the company shall start implementing the program in other restaurants locations as well. Let’s dig in to know the reason behind this move and the challenges that lie ahead.

Undoubtedly Carl Icahn is one of the best investors in the world and one of my favorite hedge fund gurus. He founded Icahn Capital LP, which had $31.89 billion under management at Dec. 31, 2014. The investor reported increasing his stake in Federal-Mogul Holdings Corporation (FDML), a $2.01 billion market cap, according to GuruFocus Real Time Picks.

Minneapolis-based Donaldson (DCI) is a long time Mairs and Power holding, familiar to the firm but new to the Small Cap Fund. The manufacturer of filtration systems and replacement parts in a variety of industries was affected by recent weakness in off-highway vehicle (and Donaldson filters) sales creating an attractive opportunity for the Small Cap Fund to initiate a position in the stock.

Oasis Petroleum (OAS) (oil exploration and production) was the worst performing stock for the year. While the company was able to earn phenomenal returns on wells drilled in North Dakota’s Bakken at $100+/barrel oil prices, the economics significantly degrade when oil is less than $50 a barrel.

Gentherm (THRM) (heating and cooling technology primarily utilized in automobile seats) was also a top performer for the year, though the stock was among the lowest performers in the fourth quarter as some of its business is tied to energy efficiency. Longer term, the company still appears well positioned regardless of what happens with oil prices.

Vasco Data Security (VDSI) (password authentication hardware and software) led Fund performance for both the quarter and the year. While the company derives most of its revenue outside the U.S., headlines of data breaches at major U.S. corporations are driving consumer demand for better protection of their private information, and Vasco’s data security products are helping the company penetrate the U.S. market.

Investors could be forgiven if they looked back on 2014 as a year of mixed signals. Concerns about slowing growth in China, a possible recession across Europe and increasing tensions with Russia over their aggressive moves against Ukraine all contributed to market uncertainty. On the other hand, earnings continued to exceed expectations and the rapid decline in energy prices put a tailwind behind the U.S. economy, rewarding investors with the sixth year in a row of positive returns and the longest run since the bull market of the 1990s.

With crude oil down more than 40 percent for 2014 (and continuing to fall in the first weeks of the New Year), we believe this will be the biggest driver of the U.S. markets and economy over the next several quarters. GDP growth in Q3 was revised upward to a healthy five percent annual rate, even before the stimulus of lower gas prices had fully kicked in, revealing continued momentum to the domestic economy as we enter 2015.

Mario Gabelli (Trades, Portfolio) has continued to use the same formula for success since 1976 when he founded GAMCO Investors. The firm has continued to use a bottom-up research strategy with a consistent investment process.

Gabelli currently owns 861 stocks in his portfolio with a total value of $19.19 billion and a quarter-over-quarter turnover at 3%.

Canadian tech major BlackBerry (BBRY) gave the investors a pleasant surprise as it came out with its fiscal 2015 fourth-quarter and full-year earnings. For the quarter the company reported a bottom line that was in the green – a refreshing and reassuring change after several quarters of losses (excluding the third quarter which also saw positive earnings). However, for the full year the net income was still negative. So, what was it that made investors smile? Well, the much-improved bottom line. Last year, the full year loss came to a flabbergasting $5.9 billion which was reduced to only $304 million this year – that’s surely a great improvement especially considering the time span in play. Let’s take a look at the numbers and other significant developments.

Investors could be forgiven if they looked back on 2014 as a year of mixed signals. Concerns about slowing growth in China, a possible recession across Europe and increasing tensions with Russia over their aggressive moves against Ukraine all contributed to market uncertainty. On the other hand, earnings continued to exceed expectations and the rapid decline in energy prices put a tailwind behind the U.S. economy, rewarding investors with the sixth year in a row of positive returns and the longest run since the bull market of the 1990s.

With crude oil down more than 40 percent for 2014 (and continuing to fall in the first weeks of the New Year), we believe this will be the biggest driver of the U.S. markets and economy over the next several quarters. GDP growth in Q3 was revised upward to a healthy five percent annual rate, even before the stimulus of lower gas prices had fully kicked in, revealing continued momentum to the domestic economy as we enter 2015.

Charlie Munger (Trades, Portfolio) - at the last annual meeting of the Daily Journal Corporation (DJCO) - where Charlie is Chairman - said some pithy stuff about Valeant (and implicitly the CEO J Micheal Pearson). To quote:

Valeant is like ITT and Harold Geneen come back to life, only the guy is worse this time.

As the cloud technology matures with time, more and more businesses are deploying their application software on cloud. NetSuite (N) is one such company that has been benefiting from cloud technology and has been recording sustained grown in past few quarters. The company provides ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software and also has the SAAS (Software As Application Service) business model for its application software with a recurring licensing cost.

Ford Motor’s (F) F-Series deliveries have been weak in the past several months. The F-Series is the top revenue- and profit-generating vehicle for the company. However, the retooling process at the Dearborn and Kansas City plants kept facilities shut for a temporary period in the last year. This has resulted in a supply problem. Let’s try and look deeper into the issue to see how it impacted numbers, and study whether the F-Series sales would recover.

IOE (Internet of Everything) is a new evolution of internet and we are heading to see how internet further changes the world. Cisco (CSCO) is a market leader in providing network solutions and is all set to gain from this new evolution of internet technology stated as IOE. The anticipated market for the IOE is forested to reach $14.4 trillion as net profit between 2013 and 2022 globally. Investors that eye technology stocks can always be interested in companies like Cisco, as it is on tracks to benefit from IOE market. The existing product portfolio of Cisco will be in demand as the IOE awareness and its market matures with time to come.

Israeli bio-tech company Teva Pharmaceutical (NYSE: TEVA) announced on March 30th that it will acquire neurology drug company Auspex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ASPX) for an equity value of $3.5 billion in an effort to expand its treatments for the central nervous system.

Investing in frontier markets can come with a higher degree of volatility than more established markets, but to my team and me, they offer exciting potential. Some of yesterday’s small, agrarian economies have transformed themselves into global powers today—China being the most impressive example. China represents the second-largest economy in the world today, depending on how you crunch the numbers, and it has been incredible to see the changes taking place there in my lifetime. It got me thinking about economies that were viewed as largely untouchable or risky for investors and travelers even just a few years ago, but that today are being discussed as interesting potential destinations for both.

Here are some examples fromrecent history of countries that were shunned or out of favor in the international community at large, but have undergone big transformations. This includes some emerging and frontier markets that are currently of great interest to us, and countries we are not yet investing in, but that are opening up to investors.

Analysts are speculating about the future of Xilinx (NASDAQ: XLNX) ever since rumors of Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) buying Altera (NASDAQ: ALTR) surfaced. Xilinx, a leader in semiconductors and pioneer of the FPGA circuit, is a rival of Altera and analysts believe Xilinx may be next in line for a merger.

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